Held at the JCA centre Condover Hall courtesy of Centre Manager Helen Jones. Planned, organised and everything else by Tony Callow using a 1:2000 scale map, technical help from the Parker Family, social lubrication from Mike Callow, mince pies from the Riley’s and trophy collection by Adrian Griffiths. Other people assisted in a number of small but vital on-the-day roles. Apologies if I have omitted to name someone who played a major part in all this.

This was a lot of fun- fast running, gate finding, step leaping, hedge weaving, concentrating navigation was needed to do these courses well. There 3 courses, all short at less than 2km, but with many controls, this combination put a premium on maintaining control and contact with the map whilst travelling as quickly as possible. Everyone started in the half hour between 11.30 and 12.00 and ran at least one course. The short start period kept the whole event compact for the organiser and provided competitive atmosphere on the courses; when you were out on your course there were people running in different directions all the time. Some of them in the right direction.

The more confident, more experienced and bravest competitors had to run two courses. They did this by running a second course after finishing for the first time. There was a special timed out gap between finishing the first and starting the second course. Another novel feature of the event was that some controls featured on both courses. This should have made them easier but even very experienced orienteers found that visiting a control for the second time was no guarantee of finding it as quickly as on the first visit.Keep an eye on the website for the full results. The straight results are complicated enough to put together but to establish the final handicap results Club Captain Tom Lewis has many more sums to do. Calculating Handicap results is as much an art as a science and sometimes produces something beautiful and surprising. It could happen to you.

We had about 50 club members turn out and enjoy themselves. With an experienced orienteer doing practically everything the organisation was simple and effective. Perhaps we could do more of this sort of event for ourselves? We have a number of similar areas which are often used for the Summer Series, perhaps a winter sprint series would give us some competitive races to help keep us sharp and encourage more people to join in locally.​Next year’s Club Champs will take place at around the same time somewhere not far away. Further details will emerge in the fullness of time.